Utican helping train Afghani police

Monday

Capt. Rick Redmond’s job often means barreling his heavily armored vehicle through the barren, mine-laced countryside in one of the most lawless regions of Afghanistan.

Capt. Rick Redmond’s job often means barreling his heavily armored vehicle through the barren, mine-laced countryside in one of the most lawless regions of Afghanistan.

Redmond of Utica is one of many New York Army National Guard members deployed to the country – officials wouldn’t say how many are there – and charged with enlarging and training the miniscule police and military force.

“We are working on new weapons, new vehicles, uniforms, ammunition for their weapons,” Redmond said by phone recently from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Many military personnel are doing similar tasks throughout the Middle Eastern country, but Redmond’s location in the flat, destitute province of Ghazni puts him in one of the most dangerous in the country, officials said.

“These guys, they operate ‘down range,’” explained Lt. Col. Paul Fanning. “Most of the violence is taking place in these other locations. They are the ones that are on the roads all the time, braving the IEDs.”

IEDs is Army lingo for improvised explosive devices. That is, bombs.

The fight against terrorist groups including the Taliban in Afghanistan has continued to increase recently: In the last three months, more Americans have been killed there than in Iraq.

And the number of suicide bombers continues to climb, from two in 2002 to more than 100 in 2007.

“We seem to fight the enemy at least once a week,” said Redmond, 34.

Fighting may mean dodging an explosive device set along the few roads that lace the country. He’s had many close calls.

Two months ago, he was riding in a vehicle that rolled over one of those mines.

The vehicle was destroyed. But he, the driver and the gunner walked away, he said.

It’s just one of “numerous” close calls, he said, in a land populated by people who live without running water, and several generations occupy just one or two earthen-walled rooms.

“It’s a tremendously poor area,” he said. “The majority of the people do not have running water and they live in mud huts … subsist on vegetables they grow.”

There are flocks of sheep, a few cows, some orchards and the occasional cash crop of opium poppies.